Angel's Wings
by RecklessAbandon777
Summary: When Jack runs into a childhood friend he thought he'd never see again his world spins out of control. As she drudges up the past dark secrets are revealed and they struggle do deal with the pain of their youth. Was their reunion fate? Or should she have stayed gone...
1. ROLLING STONE

**Chapter I. ROLLING STONE**

_Now you don't seem so proud. _

_About having to be scrounging your next meal._

_How does it feel?_

_To be without a home_

_Like a complete unknown_

_Like a rolling stone?_

* * *

Jack Mercer was sitting on his front stoop, blowing smoke rings into the cold Detroit air. The houses around him were all in various states of decay. The streets were dirty and cluttered, and there wasn't a single living thing in sight. The gray and dismal landscape would seem foreboding to most, but Jack had lived there his whole life. He didn't know anything else.

Someone slapped his head down and Jack jumped. As he turned around the scowl on his face intensified at the sight of his brother Bobby.

"Whadda ya doin' out here fairy?" he asked belligerently. Jack swatted his hand away and mumbled, "Nothing."

Bobby smirked as he opened the door to the barely running mustang he'd bought off a buddy a few weeks back. "Typical teenagers", he thought to himself.

"Hey Bobby, how do ya even get that thing to move?" Jack provoked.

"It runs better than your car Jackie. Ya know why that is? Cause any car's better than no car!"

"I dunno man, that's the biggest piece of crap I ever seen. Do they even let you call that a car?"

"Hey fairy shut your fucking mouth! Do you need a ride?" When Jack shook his head Bobby grinned mischievously, "Good, cause you wouldn't be gettin' one anyways. Catch you later lil sis! Don't stay out too late, it's a school night."

As Bobby gunned the ignition he shouted, "Have a happy fucking birthday princess!" and sped off down the street while Jack shouted, "Asshole!"

* * *

Several hours later, a black Buick skidded to the curb in front of the Mercer house. A teenage boy with spiked black hair leaned out of the window and yelled, "Jacko! Let's go!"

Jack sighed and putting out his cigarette with the heel of his shoe, hopped over the chain link fence surrounding his front yard and slid into the back seat. When he got in the driver turned around to grin at him. "Happy 18th birthday Jack!"

"Thanks Alan" Jack smiled and the boy riding shot-gun let out an obnoxious whoop and shouted, "18 baby! You ready for your present?"

Jack groaned and complained, "No way Scooter! I thought we were going to see Olli's band at that new place down on Pine Street."

"Hahaha! Don't worry 'bout it. I'm taking care of you. Tonight Jack becomes a man!" Scooter laughed raucously and turned up the radio. Jack slouched into the busted leather seats shaking his head in resignation. He didn't know what his friend had planned, but he knew it was either A. stupid or B. illegal. "Probably both", Jack thought to himself. But he wasn't too worried; as long as Alan was there he knew they wouldn't be doing anything life-threatening.

As they rounded a corner and turned onto 45th street Jack sat up straight and asked, "What are we doing here?"

"This", Scooter supplied, grinning like a chesire cat, "is your birthday present!"

"Welcome to manhood my friend!" Alan grinned.

"Are you guys insane?" Jack asked incredulously. "Chill out man", Alan drawled, "We've got you covered." He shoved a roll of bills into Jack's hand and turned the radio down. "Listen, all you gotta do is pick the one you like best and show her the money. The rest all comes naturally."

Jack glanced dubiously at his two friends, "I dunno man. Why do I get the feeling that this whole thing is gonna come back to bite me in the ass?"

"Quit being such a square bro! Go for it! Me and Alan will be in Token's if you need us."

"Which you won't" supplied Alan.

Jack had a very brief internal struggle before his conscience was silenced by his dick. He smirked at his friends and high-fived them. "All right you retards, don't wait up."

With that he hopped out of the car and with a confidence he didn't feel, sauntered into the strip club. The bouncer stopped him before he'd even got three feet.

"Where do you think you're going boy?" he asked in a monotonous voice. Jack smiled and answered, "Just looking for my brother, it's late and we gotta get home."

"Uh huh, alright let me see some ID." Jack dug his hands in his pockets and pulled out a $20 dollar bill. Handing it to the bouncer he winked and quipped, "Have a wonderful evening."

After about fifteen minutes of generous tipping on Jack's part, a busty blond led Jack towards the back rooms. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't grateful to his delinquent friends for bringing him here. He never would have come by himself. But as the blond started whispering things in his ear that made his teenage body hornier than ever, he was thinking this would be one of the best birthday's ever. Voices from outside suddenly grabbed his attention as he saw figures moving by the back door of the club. Separating himself from the girl he looked out into the alley and saw two girls who couldn't be much older than he was wrestling with a disheveled looking man. The stripper grabbed his arm and said, "Baby leave them alone, you don't want their kind of service."

Jack was about to go back inside to the D-cups that were waiting for him when something caught his eye. The smaller of the two girls looked at him and he froze on the spot. He knew those eyes!

He didn't have time to try to remember who she was; he just knew he needed to help her. Rushing out into the alley he yelled, "Hey! Hey you! Leave them alone!"

The man looked startled for a second, then quickly dropped the girl, running like a bat out of hell. When Jack reached the two girls he bent down and slowly helped her to her feet.

"Are you alright?" he asked softly. She nodded her head and attempted to stand by herself. When her knees collapsed underneath her weight Jack gripped her under the arms and whispered, "Lean on me."

The girl shivered against the cold and as Jack observed her clothes he realized she and her friend were hookers. He must have made a mistake, he didn't know any hookers. Besides, by the look of these two they'd been through the mill. Jack didn't like to see that look on people. That broken look, that sign of utter hopelessness. It hit too close to home.

But this time Jack's conscience won the mental war and he knew he couldn't just leave her there. So trying to sound polite Jack asked, "Do you want me to give you ride?"

The words had barely escaped Jack's lips when the other girl who'd been hovering a safe distance away took off like a rocket. Jack shouted, "Wait, come back!" but it was no use. The forlorn figure clutching onto him was starting to tremble, so Jack opened the car door and carefully placed her in the back seat. Climbing in after her, he shut the door and turned up the heat. He stared intensely at her for a few moments, her chocolate eyes mesmerizing for reasons he couldn't explain. She seemed soulless and completely void of emotion as her trembling fingers began to undo the zipper on Jack's pants. Jerking away from the shell of a girl he exclaimed, "What are you doing?"

She looked at him bewildered as he pushed her away. "Listen", Jack began nervously, "I...you don't have to do that. I don't want it. I…I just wanna talk."

Jack couldn't explain, but one look at the emaciated girl was enough to kill his sex drive. Nothing turned him off like vulnerability. If it was possible she looked even more confused than before. But her body relaxed at the promise of security. She stared Jack in the eyes, this time holding his gaze. He asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper, "What's your name?"

Her voice was cracked and her tone displayed the meekness of her mentality.

"Emma"

Jack could have sworn his heart stopped beating. He felt like he'd been hit by a ton of bricks. "What?" he asked thunderstruck.

She peered inquisitively at the teenager as if seeing him for the first time. Suddenly she cried out, "Jack?"

The effects of that single word were astronomical. Emma's worn out features lit up in excitement. Her orb-like eyes were glistening with unshed tears. She threw her bony arms around the boy she thought she'd never see again. As the long lost friends embraced, a torrent of memories flooded their brains, opening doors they'd tried to lock long ago.


	2. UNDER THE WATER

**Chapter II. UNDER THE WATER**

_Excuse me sir, am I your daughter? _

_Won't you take me back, take me back and see_

_There's not a time, for being younger_

_And all my friends are enemies_

_And if I cried unto my mother_

_No she wasn't there, she wasn't there for me._

* * *

February 1982

Jack had been at Southeastern Detroit's Municipal Home for Endangered Children almost a year to date. The circumstances of his arrival were rather unpleasant. When he was five years old his daddy shot his mommy with the gun that was kept hidden in the closet. He shot the mailman as well. Jack didn't fully understand at the time, but the short version was that his mommy hadn't been faithful and his daddy had a nasty temper.

Jack had been placed in emergency foster care when the neighbors had called the police and his daddy was arrested. The folks who took him in for those few hectic weeks during the arraignment and subsequent trial were extremely kind. Under different circumstances Jack might have enjoyed his time there. Unfortunately, they weren't prepared to accept a kid full time. When the state couldn't contact any of Jack's relatives (aside from an aunt out in New Hampshire who had wanted nothing to do with him) they shipped him off to 'the sewer', a friendly nickname for the hell-hole in which he spent the next six years intermittently.

There were a lot of kids running around the group home. Most, but not all, were older than Jack when he first arrived. There were several disabled ones that'd been abandoned at hospitals because their parents didn't want them. Lots were there as a result of some sort of neglect or even abuse. Most, like Jack, were there because their parents were either dead or in jail.

To be six years old and have the knowledge that you simply aren't worth the trouble of the paper work it would take to find you a home can have an adverse effect on some children. To Jack, it only solidified the understanding that he was worthless. Easily forgettable, useless, and hopeless aren't the adjectives one wants used in conjunction with themselves. But because that was what his father had told him, and nobody around him attempted to persuade him differently, Jack continued to believe that's all he would ever be. That is, until _she_ entered the picture.

She arrived one rainy Wednesday night with only a small backpack of clothes and a worn-out stuffed cat named Meow. She spent her first night there crying for her sister and holding onto that cat for dear life. As Jack would discover later, she was a victim of government interference, and most likely would have lived a much happier life had she not been taken from her home. She had lived with her mother and older sister in a derelict apartment in the poorest section of Detroit. They couldn't pay the rent, so the landlord had them evicted. A teacher at the six year old's school notified social services when she stopped attending class. Because her sister was eighteen, there was nothing CPS could do for her. They did the only thing they could, which was to abstract a little girl from the only two people in the world who cared for her and toss her into the vicious cesspool that was Detroit's Child Protective Services.

She had short and curly brown hair, large chocolate eyes that were wide with innocence, and a small button nose. She was sensitive, sweet, and naïve, qualities that made her extremely vulnerable in that situation. She was shy and scared. She was Emma.

* * *

Jack officially met Emma about a week after her arrival. In one of those moments in life that define who a person truly is, Jack proved himself to be more than a hapless delinquent.

Emma hadn't left her room for the majority of her time in 'the sewer', but eventually the hunger was insatiable. As she tried to forage for food in the kitchen she'd been shocked to learn that all the cabinets were pad locked. That's when some of the older boys began picking on her. They grabbed her stuffed animal and held it over the stove-tops open flame. As its tail began to singe and Emma's cries became more profuse, Jack found it impossible to walk away. So he did the only thing a seven year old could in that situation, throw a rock at the window perpendicular to the boys heads. Thinking it was gun shots, the fifth graders dropped the cat and ran.

Emma gathered Meow in her arms and wept. She cried for the blackened tail on her favorite stuffed animal. She cried for her family, who she was afraid she'd never see again. She cried for herself.

Jack didn't go up to the crying child, curled up on the kitchen floor. He didn't speak to her all week, yet she consumed his thoughts both night and day. Although he hadn't said two words to her, he began to refer to her as Emmy in his head.

After several weeks in the group home, Emma still hadn't acclimated to the 'every man for himself' attitude. Most of her shirts had been stolen, she barely ever had anything to eat, and her nonexistent tooth brush made it impossible for her to brush her teeth.

Jack was sitting on a crumbling brick wall in the front yard of the home. It was a very routine Sunday for him: have breakfast, ostracize himself, check the guardian's pockets for extra change, wallow in self-pity, spy on Emma, have lunch. You can imagine his surprise when the very girl he'd fixated on walked up to him that morning. The dreary background of 'the sewer' didn't emulate Jack's feelings for once. It should have been a warm sunny day, with puffy white clouds and a fucking rainbow as far as Jack was concerned.

At first all she did was sit next to him. He was fine with that, introverted as he was. Conversation would just destroy the delicate balance they'd perfected. But Emma was an extrovert if he'd ever seen one. Jack should have known she wouldn't stay silent for long.

"What's your name?" she asked boldly.

Jack stared without reaction, sticking to his demure nature. But there was something about this little girl, something about the way her eyes were gleaming brightly, instead of swollen with tears, that made him answer,

"Jack."

"Hi Jack, my name's Emma." He already knew that, but nodded his head anyway.

"Why were you following me yesterday?"

She'd noticed! But Jack wasn't about to admit to following a girl around. Thus began his introduction to the fine art of lying.

"No I wasn't!"

"Yes you were!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Yeah huh!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Look," Emma placated, interrupting the intense dispute, "I don't care that you were. I just came over to ask…will you be my friend?"

"What?" Jack asked, thoroughly shocked at this unexpected request.

"Well I just thought, since you're alone and I'm alone, we can be alone together."

Jack nodded reluctantly, he didn't want to be friends with a girl, but he wasn't about to tell the tiny brunette to piss off.

"Anyway I won't be here long. My mommy's gonna get me real soon."

Jack doubted that. He'd been at 'the sewer' a long time. No kid's parents ever came to pick them up. Some were sent to foster homes, others stayed until they were thirteen, when they were moved to the Lincoln's. Which was essentially the same place, except there were separate homes for boys and girls. This little girl was screwed if she thought she was leaving. You don't get to escape from 'the sewer'. It's all downhill from here, Jack mused.

* * *

_Lay my head, under the water._

_Aloud I pray, for calmer seas._

_And when I wake from this dream, with chains all around me, _

_No, I've never been, I've never been free._

Sure enough, Jack and Emma struck up a close friendship. The unlikely pair earned themselves quiet a reputation as deviant troublemakers. Although it wasn't that they were undeserving of it, it did prevent them from getting into a foster home. Social workers hadn't even tried to place either of them with a family. Word spread quickly around 'the sewer', and the word was you wanted nothing to do with Emma Pruitt or Jack Gallagher.

"What are you doing?" Emma asked Jack as she entered the room he shared with three other boys.

"Shhh," he whispered impatiently, waving a hand to silence her, "Check this out. I got everything stashed in here. 17 dollars and 29 cents. "

Jack unscrewed the leg of the archaic twin bed to reveal a hidden niche in the woodwork. Wide eyed with excitement Emma knelt beside her partner in crime to inspect the hiding place. Satisfied with its validity she reached into her pocket and extracted $3.58 in change.

"Where'd you get this?" Jack asked a hint of pride in his voice. For almost three months now, the two miscreants had been squirreling away any money they could get their grubby hands on. Their plan was to save enough to buy three plane tickets to California. They didn't know the exact cost or even where the Detroit airport was. But Jack had stolen a _Guns n Roses_ cd from one of the older boys in the home, and while reading the inside cover discovered that they were recorded in a studio in California. So Jack told Emma he was going to California to record a record. She had reminded him he needed a band.

Since neither one knew how to play an instrument they decided to seek outside assistance. Emma had wanted to be the lead singer, but Jack was adamant about being the front man in 'his' band. So Emma was stuck on drums, which for them meant old pots and pans from the junk yard. They convinced a half Dominican kid name Zach to play guitar, but there were still some minor details to work out. Primarily, where they were going to get their instruments. But the determined trio had been doggedly pooling their money together ever since.

"I got 48 cents from the gutters on Hill Street, a dime stuck between the refrigerator and the wall, and a dollar from some lady who thought I was homeless." Emma recounted.

"Whadda bout the other two bucks?" Jack questioned.

"Oh yeah, Eddie Poplowski gave me two dollars to kiss him on the lips."

"He what?" Jack asked.

"You heard me, what's the big deal?" Emma asked, handing the cash to Jack.

"Next time see if you can get four," Jack mumbled as he stuffed the money into the hiding spot.

"How much longer until we have enough for the tickets?" Emma asked impatiently.

"I'm not sure," Jack evaded. "Do you know how much plane tickets cost?"

"No," Emma admitted, "Do you?"

"I asked Mrs. Pak the other day, ya' know cause she's Asian and all I thought she might know."

"What'd she say?"

Jack sighed, returning the leg to its previous state he stood up and said, "She told me more than I got. When I asked how much more she said $300 bucks." Jack kicked the wall with his foot and yelled, "It's so stupid! We're never gonna have enough!"

Suddenly an angry voice began screaming, "Emma! Emma Pruitt! Get down here right now!"

The two friends stared at each other panic-stricken. Mrs. Brown was the meanest of the guardians; it didn't take much to set her off. When she was really upset, she brought Mr. Harrison along, and that was something no kid with half a brain wanted in a million years.

"We'd better hide," Emma suggested, and they both scrambled to find an escape. With no way out, Jack and Emma stuffed themselves into the closet, shielded from view by a mop and unfilled buckets of cleaning fluids. Unlucky as they were, it didn't take long for Mrs. Brown to discover their refuge. Irascibly, she grabbed both children by their shirt collars and dragged them down to the kitchen. Mr. Harrison stood before them, arms crossed with a grim expression; he glanced up at Mrs. Brown as she entered.

"Are these the offenders?" he asked sternly.

"This," Mrs. Brown began shaking Emma roughly, "is the thief. I found him hiding with her in the broom closet."

Frowning disappointedly Mr. Harrison knelt down so he was Emma's height. "Little girl, do you know why we called you here?"

Emma shook her head vigorously. Her palms became clammy and her heart rate accelerated.

"I think you do Emma. I think you're lying to me right now. What do you think?"

All the frightened child could do was stand, utterly frozen, waiting for some divine intervention to save her from her fate

"Still nothing to say? That's a shame. This morning Mrs. Brown discovered a missing apple. You don't know anything about that do you Emma?"

Emma protested, but in reality she knew precisely what Mr. Harrison was alluding to. She had stolen the apple that morning. She knew each child was only allowed one, but she was so hungry. Jack had warned her of the consequences. It was one thing to steal from other kids, but Mrs. Brown took her pantry very seriously. One item out of place caused her to have a conniption.

"Well then my dear. I'm afraid we're going to have a talk about this in my office. Come along now."

Emma's eyes were wide with fear. She followed Mr. Harrison like a prisoner on death row. Every foster kid knew what happened in Mr. Harrison's office. Although Mrs. Brown ran the Municipal Home for Endangered Children, Mr. Harrison helped fund it. He had his own office near the back of the building. The kids that went in there never came out the same.

Jack felt physically sick as he watched his friend being lead into Mr. Harrison's office. It was all he could do to keep from grabbing her hand and running away. But Jack was smart, he knew that escaping now would be futile. When Emma turned her head and stared at Jack desperately with those big brown eyes he knew what he had to do.

Later that night, when Emma crept into his room with bruises adorning her delicate frame, Jack was ready. Jack might not have been the bravest kid in that sinkhole, but he was ferociously loyal. And he was willing to do whatever he had to to protect the people he cared for. He didn't know it yet, but he and Emma were headed down a road that no one could save them from.

* * *

_Broken lines, across my mirror. _

_Show my face, all red and bruised._

_And though I screamed and I screamed_

_Well, no one came running._

_No I wasn't saved, I wasn't safe from you._


End file.
